And all went blank.

CHAPTER III

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES

1.

To start with, there was the awareness of awareness.

Then an awareness of pressure, soft and comforting.

Later still, an awareness of sounds: a faint chirp that repeated, a distant rumble, the whir of recycled air.

Last of all came an awareness of self, rising from within the depths of blackness. It was a slow process; the murk was thick and heavy, like a blanket of silt, and it stifled her thoughts, weighing them down and burying them in the deepness. The natural buoyancy of her consciousness prevailed, though, and in time, she woke.

2.

Kira opened her eyes.

She was lying on an exam table in sickbay, at HQ. Above her, a pair of lightstrips striped the bracketed ceiling, blue-white and harsh. The air was cool and dry and smelled of familiar solvents.

I’m alive.

Why was that surprising? And how had she ended up in sickbay? Weren’t they supposed to be leaving for the Fidanza?

She swallowed, and the foul taste of hibernation fluids caused her to gag. Her stomach turned as she recognized the taste. Cryo? She’d been in fucking cryo? Why? For how long?

What the hell had happened?!

Panic spiked her pulse, and Kira bolted upright, clawing at the blanket that covered her. “Gaaah!” She was wearing a thin medical gown, tied at the sides.

The walls swam around her with cryo-induced vertigo. She pitched forward and fell off the table onto the white decking, heaving as her body tried to expel the poison inside of her. Nothing came up except drool and bile.

“Kira!”

She felt hands turning her over, and then Alan appeared above her, cradling her with gentle arms. “Kira,” he said again, his face pinched with concern. “Shhh. It’s okay. I’ve got you now. Everything’s okay.”

He looked nearly as bad as Kira felt. His cheeks were hollow, and there were lines around his eyes she didn’t remember from that morning. Morning? “How long?” she croaked.

Alan winced. “Almost four weeks.”

“No.” Dread sank into her. “Four weeks?” Unable to believe it, Kira checked her overlays: 1402 GST, Monday, August 16, 2257.

Stunned, she read the date twice more. Alan was right. The last day she recalled, the day they’d been supposed to depart Adra, was the twenty-first of July. Four weeks!

Feeling lost, she searched Alan’s face, hoping for answers. “Why?”

He stroked her hair. “What do you remember?”

Kira struggled to answer. “I—” Mendoza had told her to check on the downed drone, and then … and then … falling, pain, glowing lines, and darkness, darkness all around.

“Ahhh!” She scrabbled backwards and clutched at her neck, heart pounding. It felt as if something were blocking her throat, suffocating her.

“Relax,” said Alan, keeping a hand on her shoulder. “Relax. You’re safe now. Breathe.”

A clutch of agonized seconds, and then her throat loosened and she sucked in a breath, desperate for air. Kira shuddered and grabbed Alan and held him as tight as she could. She’d never been prone to panic attacks, not even during finals for her IPD, but the feeling of being suffocated had been so real.…